Green events to celebrate the good Earth
Groups plan to spread Earth Day message
WHERE can you withdraw a money plant? Why, at a bank, of course.
To spread the "green" message, HongkongBank will give away a potted plant with every new account opened until the end of May.
This will be among the more unusual activities that some groups have planned for Earth Day tomorrow.
Other events include a tower of garbage, recycling projects, a petition for a plastics recycling centre and a "green" play.
Earth Day, which Is dedicated to saving the environment, was started in 1970 by Greenpeace, an international environmental group.
A spokesman for HongkongBank said: "It’s a symbolic gesture on going green, something that you can watch grow and nurture."
New account holders can collect their plants from the bank’s Tanglin branch or from the Hana Deco nursery at the Seletar West Farmway on designated dates.
In addition, the bank will plant a sapling for every account holder who maintains a $3,000 minimum balance for three months.
The location of the plot will be decided later, but the spokesman said that it welcomes ideas from the public.
Another organisatlon marking Earth Day Is Jalan Hijau, an environmental group of the Nature Society, which will display a see-through plastic tower filled with newspapers, food waste, drink cans and packaging at the entrance of Tangs department store.
Mrs Cynthia Wee-Hoefer, the group’s founder, said the tower represents the 1.2 kg of rubbish thrown away daily by every Singaporean.
She said: "Most people throw garbage and think it disappears. So we want to shock them with this visual display. We want to tell them that if you separate your waste and send It for recycling, you can actually make use of some of it."
The Singapore Science Centre, which will increase its Earth Day activities from one day last year to four days this year, will feature newspaper and can recycling, a "green" play by Act 3 and an interactive maze, where visitors can experience the process of aluminum recycling.
A Science Centre spokesman said: "There’s greater stress on the environment, and people are more interested, so we decided to extend it to the weekend, when more people are likely to come."
At the Body Shop branches, the public can sign a petition for a plastics recycling plant in Singapore.
The petition will be sent to the Environment Ministry.
At Forum the Shopping Mall, a 3-rn-high "Friendly Recycling Tree" has been set up to collect paper for recycling, and the public can also sign a giant bandage, which symbolically covers the hole in the ozone layer.
Source : The Straits Times 21st Apr 1993
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